


Unavoidable talk

by bluepointragdoll



Category: NCIS: Los Angeles
Genre: Avoidant G is avoidant, Callen still has next to no furniture, Episode Tag, Episode: s04 ep17 Wanted, Established Relationship, Michelle's boys are both ridiculous, Multi, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-29
Updated: 2013-04-29
Packaged: 2017-12-09 23:03:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/778980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluepointragdoll/pseuds/bluepointragdoll
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Episode tag for "Wanted"; Michelle hates unnecessarily guilty consciences</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unavoidable talk

**Author's Note:**

> See date: as of this point the Hanna child hasn't been named, so I just picked one. (For that matter, they don't seem to be able to decide if there's one Hanna child or two. e.e)

Things that should have been in G's house: his stuff, two beers, a loaf of stale Wonderbread, darkness and relative silence. Things that are in G's house: his stuff, two beers, a quart of milk and a dozen eggs, three tupperware containers full of what looks like chili, pasta salad and something else similar, a half-dozen apples, some juice, a new beanbag chair, light, relative silence, and Michelle. 

Standing in the kitchen, looking at the fridge, with Michelle sitting in the beanbag chair where he'd seen her coming up the walk (and so elected to come in by the kitchen door instead of the front) having still not said anything, G runs through a dozen different openings, ranging from _civilization means calling before you break into someone's house_ (obvious reply: _civilization also means sleeping on real beds_ , or insert some other thing G doesn't do here) to _for the love of God, will you go away._

Immediate reply . . . he has no idea, actually. Things he has never actually said to anyone surnamed Hanna in any tone of voice that could be mistaken for serious: _go away and leave me alone._

Eventually he pulls both beers out of the fridge, drops his bag on the kitchen floor, twists both twist-caps off and hands one of them to Michelle on his way past. A small and spiteful part of him considered dropping it on her if she wasn't alert enough to take it, but even that small and spiteful part should have known better. She already had her hand up to take it before she even looked at him. 

"I suppose I should be grateful you made sure I could see you, so I didn't accidentally break your neck and make Sam kill me," he says, aware that he sounds about, oh, fourteen and bitchy, and resenting that too. He sits in his chair and decides he's making her take the bean-bag one with her when she goes. 

"I just got tired of you avoiding me," Michelle replies, closing up her Vogue and settling back, beer in hand and her best calmly expectant look on her face. 

"I'm not avoiding you," G says, fast and without thinking, and then hides the desire to call himself an idiot behind a drink of beer. The disadvantage of staying anywhere long enough that they know you is that then they know you and they can read you and they do; Michelle gives him a thin if satisfied smile. 

"Yes, you are," she says, calm. "You know how I know? Because yesterday Imogen asked me why it's been so long since you've been over for dinner, and whether you liked her anymore." 

Then she pretends to be brushing condensation off her magazine cover and wiping the bottom of the bottle on her jeans so it won't drip anymore while G stares at her, arm arrested halfway through taking another drink and jaw locked on a lot of things he really doesn't want to say. 

And he doesn't. He doesn't actually want to say _go to Hell you manipulative bitch_ or _get the fuck out of my house_ or anything, because he's not actually angry, not exactly. It's just that everything gets dumped into his brain through anger sometimes, and this is one of them. 

Besides, calling Michelle manipulative is like calling water wet or Hetty secretive or Sam stubborn, or calling anything else or anyone else something that's intrinsic and natural and actually sometimes one of its or their best qualities. 

Besides. She could pretty legitimately point out that what she's manipulating him out of doing is ruining his relationship with Imogen. Among other things he doesn't want to think about. 

After a minute, he puts his beer down on the table and manages to say in a very calm voice, "That wasn't fair." 

Michelle looks back to him and if there's sympathy there, there's no remorse. "All's fair in love and war," she replies, "and stretch it a bit, this is both." Her fingers interlace around the bottle. "It wasn't your fault," she says. 

G takes the opportunity to really minutely examine his mantlepiece. Michelle doesn't quit talking. "You didn't do anything wrong," she says, "sometimes life is full of shit and other people's mistakes, the job is dangerous, we got out fine, and did I say it's not your fault?" She shifts slightly and adds, "And if you're about to say that's easy for me to say, be warned I will throw this bottle at you and it will hit your head. I'm a mean shot."

"No," says G, leaning one arm on the arm-rest and digging his thumb into his temple, "you're just mean." He pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs. "I wasn't avoiding you." 

"Mm," Michelle replies, "I'll believe you weren't avoiding me on purpose. As long as you tell me you're coming over on Sunday and actually follow through - I wasn't making shit up, G. You know I wouldn't. Immy's a little fragile right now." 

G frowns at her, willingly distracted from thinking about anything else she's said. "Why?" 

"Because kids are assholes," she says, blunt and so annoyed G has to stifle a laugh. "It's not funny," she says, looking upwards as if asking someone for patience. "They forgot to tell me when I got pregnant that the hardest part of being a mom was going to be wanting to walk in and give the other kids a thick ear, and maybe their parents, too. 

She sighs. "Her best friend decided last week that Immy wasn't cool because she wore too many different hats," she elaborates, disgusted, "and hats aren't cool. Or at least that's what Immy took away from it." She points the top of her bottle at G. "Don't ever have kids, G. _You_ would end up killing someone." 

Considering the hat tree in Imogen's room, G can see how the preadolescent judgement would sting, even if for a second he has to re-orient his scale to something that, say, Sam would consider sane. Hell, for that matter he reminds himself that kids have skewed sense of priorities; he remembers a girl who stayed stone-faced and quiet through all that foster-dad's screaming and ranting and threats, but spent three hours crying in the bathroom because her friend insulted her hair. 

He also forbears to mention that Imogen's not even a pre-teen, so there's plenty of time left for him to kill someone over Michelle and Sam's kid, no need to have his own. Nobody else finds that stuff funny. 

"So since her friends are being little shits, she could use a little boost from the grownups in her life," Michelle finishes. "That includes you." 

G gives her an open-palm gesture of surrender. "Sunday," he promises. 

"Three o'clock," she says. "I can give you directions and you can go pick her up from gymnastics. That'll count for something, since I know you'll take candy." 

"I was actually thinking sno-cones," G retorts. He leans his head on his fist again and gives up and asks, "Michelle, why the fuck is there a giant bean-bag chair in my living-room?" 

"Because like hell I was sitting in that piece of shit," she replies, gesturing to his chair with her beer.

"This is a perfectly adequate chair," G says and she snorts. 

"It's two steps short of a torture implement," Michelle says. "And it barely fits one person, let alone two. You're lucky I didn't bring a real couch. Or a bed. You need a god-damn bed, G. If you're not careful, I'll hijack you and take you and Immy on a Get Uncle Callen A Bed trip." She eyes him. "Don't test me." 

"God forbid," G says. 

"Besides," she adds, "if you get a god-damn bed then we've got somewhere to have date night. Now how long are you going to sit over there staring at me? Come here already." 

G's phone buzzes; as he digs it out of his back pocket he asks, "Why are you always so damn sure you're going to win?" which probably counts as a rhetorical question. 

"Because I'm always on the right side," Michelle replies archly, as G opens the text from Sam. 

It reads _did you steal my wife?_ and G just barely manages not to make an annoyed face at the screen before texting back, _no she broke into my fucking house to lecture me._

_good,_ comes his reply. _you needed it. remind her to pick up eggs and cupcakes._

Michelle's got a half-smile, which means G's not doing quite as well at the blank expression as he'd like, but fuck it: he's in his own damn house. "Sam would like me to remind you," he says, putting the phone down, getting up and crossing the room to the ridiculous fucking bean-bag mini-couch, "to get eggs and cupcakes. Which is as much in-betweening as I'm doing, as according to my formal policy of never getting involved in marital disputes," he goes on, dropping onto the thing beside her, "so if you want to tell him off for not remembering that you always know exactly what you need to buy any time you need to buy it, you have to text him yourself." 

Michelle runs a flattened palm over G's head and says, "You're adorable when you're put-upon," before she leans over to turn his head and kiss him.


End file.
